i know it's only rock & roll but i like it…

this much madness is too much sorrow

November 13, 2016

When I started this blog, almost seven years ago, I didn’t really know what my intent was. I think I had recently come to terms with the fact that I was never going to be on the masthead at Rolling Stone and wanted to just have a place to document my own thoughts on the music that is so deeply important to my life, and the lives of so many. I lived in Austin and worked part-time (I think that’s known as “living your best life”) so the writing was prolific at first. Then I moved to Minnesota where the inspiration and the time both ran a little lower. Then I moved to Colorado and got married and bought a house and adult life pushed out my non-paying faux career.

But now, five days after the apocalypse, I’ve decided that whether anyone reads another article on here or not ever again, I need this. Like so much of America I’ve been wandering in a heartbroken daze since that horse’s ass of a human being was elected leader of the free world. Compounded by the gut-punching losses of both Leonard Cohen and Leon Russell, I’ve been crying off and on all week (more on than off) and looking for places to direct these feelings of bewilderment, sorrow, and helplessness. But this morning I went to my record shelf and pulled out Neil Young and Crazy Horse’s Everybody Knows This is Nowhere album. Quoting Almost Famous has become dangerously basic but Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s line about “if you ever get lonely just go to the record store and visit your friends” is a legitimate proverb in my life, and dropping the needle on that album filled my heart in a way that nothing else has quite been able to in these last few days.

So I’m back, and I’m reprioritizing this quiet corner of the internet for myself. Even if my readership continues to be mostly blood-related, expressing ourselves is more important than ever now and this is my favorite way to do that. I have 2,500 words about my euphoric Desert Trip experience last month sitting in a draft waiting for my attention so that’s going to be coming soon. In the meantime, I recommend watching Ron Howard’s excellent Eight Days a Week documentary, and being reminded of how The Beatles healed our nation’s broken heart in the aftermath of JFK’s assassination. Things have been worse, and things will get better.

Wednesday morning I awoke with the gut-wrenching sorrow that I’ve only experienced this profoundly when My Jim died. I needed to let it out so I wrote the following:
They’re celebrating in the Kremlin.
I’m afraid!
There is so much fear. This evil man will upend our nation unless congress keeps him in check.
A Republican Congress.
I’m not just scared. I’m sick at heart. Sad for my family.
This debacle will even impact my great-grands.
It’s hard to believe my country was dumbed down to this level.
I still believe he is a reincarnation of Hitler. How frightening is that?
Grandma Margy